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  • The First Confessor

  • The Legend of Magda Searus
  • Written by: Terry Goodkind
  • Narrated by: Christina Traister
  • Length: 18 hrs and 45 mins
  • 4.6 out of 5 stars (94 ratings)

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The First Confessor

Written by: Terry Goodkind
Narrated by: Christina Traister
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Publisher's Summary

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Terry Goodkind comes The First Confessor, the prequel to the Sword of Truth series.

In a time before legends had yet been born....

Married to the powerful leader of her people, safe among those gifted with great ability, Magda Searus is protected from a distant world descending into war. But when her husband, a man who loved life and loved her, unexpectedly commits suicide, she suddenly finds herself alone. Because she is ungifted herself, without her husband she no longer has standing among her people, and she finds herself isolated in a society that seems to be crumbling around her.

Despite her grief, she is driven to find the reasons behind why her husband would do such a thing - why he would abandon her and her people at such a profoundly dangerous time. Though she is not gifted, she begins to discover that there may be more to her husband's suicide than anyone knew. What she finds next, no one is willing to believe.

Without anyone to help her, she knows that she must embark on a mission to find a mysterious spiritist, if she even exists, so that she may speak with the dead. This quest may also be her last chance to unravel what is really behind the mysterious events befalling her people. What she discovers along the way is that the war is going far worse than she had known, and that the consequences of defeat will be more terrifying for her and her people than she could have imagined.

As mortal peril begins to close in around her, Magda learns that she is somehow the key to her people's salvation.

Journey with Magda Searus into her dark world, and learn how true legends are born.

©2012 Terry Goodkind (P)2015 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved

What listeners say about The First Confessor

Average Customer Ratings
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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Very good!!! but...

This was an amazing story by Terry Goodkind. never a disappointment with him. from start to finish I loved it. he really has talent and I 100% recommend all good work
but...
(spoiler ahead, don't read)
sadly the narrator wasn't that great. she failed to put any emotion into any character but the main.. made the make characters sounds dull, slow and emotionless... was pretty disappointed with her.. still did an ok job but coulda had a better one. not too mention again spoiler alert.. she miss pronounced a character.. had to sit there and listen to her say "Nadja Moon" instead of "Naja Moon" like common, read the name or research pronunciations.. put effort in. other than that she did okay.

Narrator aside, it was A-1.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Entertaining but repetitive

Overall, a captivating narrative with the plot twists you would expect from Goodkind. However, the endless repetitions became annoying fast. Characters state the same thing over and over again. I got the feeling the author got paid by page and had to fill up space.
The narrator was good, though she doesn’t have much range when it comes to the male voices. There were a lot of odd pauses, though, but I fault the sound editors for that.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Entertaining

I have been a long-standing and loyal fan of Terry Goodkind's books and will miss future fantasies by this prolific and engaging writer. His passing is a great loss to us all. Although The First Confessor is not my favourite it is entertaining and provides listeners with a history of how Mother Confessors came to be. Regarding the narrator, I found her voice fine for the first few chapters but a bit grating as the book continued. Perhaps her talent is better suited to shorter novels.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Not Goodkinds best

New chapter everytime it should be a new paragraph. 90%talking and hardly any action.
Narrator was as good as the material sooo..

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Terrible performance

I’m usually not picky about the performance of the readers but I couldn’t stand this one. It wasn’t as bad when she read the male characters’ dialogues but for the rest of the narration, she was overly dramatic and added annoying upward inflections in almost every other sentence, giving her speech a “valley girl” flair. I felt that her style was completely unsuited for this book, more fitting for a Young Adult targeting teenage girls. I’m still deciding whether I could power through it or give up and read the actual book. One star for performance.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Great story, great narration

Loved the book. I had read the first few books in the sword of truth series years ago and was pleased to find this book. The book itself was captivating, the narration was perfect. Her voice suited it very well. Fantastic!! If you like his work, I would recommend this book as well.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Great book and great narrator

Christina Traister narration is amazing. She has a great voice for Magda. She also did great with the man's voices. She is better then the Male narrators were in all the other series books

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

meh

This book was really weak compared to most of his books. Not bad, but not what I'd hoped

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

An Enjoyable Listen

I haven't had much experience with audiobooks yet but I really enjoyed listening to this one. There are parts of the story where I feel T.G. is quite repetitive, he does that in other books too. But if I'm not nitpicking, then I thought this was an entertaining story, gripping at times, and a great way to fill in the backstory to S.O.T.

I personally really loved Christina Traister's narrating in this one. The way she read it really captivated me at times and drew me into the story. I can't figure out why her reviews are so terrible for Death's Mistress - how can she be so different between books? It makes me reluctant to purchase that one and risk experiencing what so many other reviewers have said about her poor narration in that one, especially with Nicci being one of my favourite characters. In this book, however, I think she did a fantastic job!

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